Pathologist: Woman alive when set on fire

Iftekhar Murtaza, right, sits next to his lawyer Doug Myers during opening staements in his death penalty case. He is accused of kidnapping and murdering his estranged girlfriend's father and sister and setting their bodies on fire in Orange County in 2007.MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Iftekhar Murtaza

What: Murtaza, 29, is charged with two counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, plus special circumstances of multiple murders, murder during the commission of a burglary, murder during the commission of kidnapping and murder for financial gain.

When: Prosecution is presenting its case in chief. Testimony resumes next Nov. 4.

Where: Orange County Superior Court Department 41.

Co-defendants: Vitaliy Krasnoperov, 27, was convicted of special circumstances murder in 2011 after an Orange County jury found that he helped Murtaza plot the murders. Charles Murphy Jr., 28, was convicted in 2012 of helping Murtaza carry out the kidnappings and murders.

Possible sentence: If jurors find Murtaza guilty of special circumstances murder, they will hear more evidence to determine if he should face the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is the county's fifth death penalty trial of 2013.

Timeline

May 21, 2007: Intruders beat kidnap and beat father and daughter, Jayprakash and Karishma Dhanak, in their Anaheim Hills home and attempt to kill mother Leela Dhanak. Later, the attackers set the house on fire.

May 22, 2007: Shortly after 4 a.m., the assailants set Jayprakash and Karishma Dhanak's bodies on fire in Irvine.

May 25, 2007: Iftekhar Murtaza, the ex-boyfriend of Shayona Dhanak, a younger daughter, is arrested at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. He was within two hours of boarding a flight to Bangladesh. He is accused of attacking the Dhanak family because he believed they coerced Shayona to break up with him because he is Muslim and they are Hindu

Dec. 15, 2011: An Orange County jury convicts Krasnoperov, 27, of special circumstances under the legal theory that he was an “aider and abettor” for his role in the planning the attack and the cover-up. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County.

Dec. 12, 2012: Charles Murphy Jr., 28, is convicted of the same charges. He faces life without the possibility of parole at his sentencing.

October 2013: Trial begins for Murtaza.

SANTA ANA – An Anaheim Hills woman was alive when her throat was slit, then gasoline was poured on her body and set on fire before she collapsed on her back on an Irvine trail, the chief forensic pathologist for Orange County testified Thursday.

A red discoloration found around Karishma Dhanak’s trachea or breathing tube in an autopsy shows she inhaled hot gases, Tony Juguilon said.

“In other words, she was alive during the fire,” he told jurors in the trial of her sister’s former boyfriend, who is accused of fatally beating, stabbing and kidnapping Dhanak and her father in 2007.

Iftekhar Murtaza, now 29, of Van Nuys blamed the Dhanak family for breaking up his relationship with Shayona Dhanak, then 18, because he is Muslim and they were Hindu, Deputy District Attorney Howard Gundy alleges.

During cross examination by defense attorney Julie Swain, Juguilon agreed he could not distinguish whether the tracheal discoloration was from a fire elsewhere or from the Irvine scene, where the smoldering bodies of the daughter and father were discovered hours later. The Dhanak home also was doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

The blood-flow pattern found on Karishma Dhanak’s body could only have happened if she were upright the whole time after her throat was slashed, Juguilon testified.

In response to a question by Swain, Juguilon said he couldn’t say if Dhanak was vertical by her own doing or positioned that way by someone else.

Autopsy results showed Dhanak, 20, died from her throat injury and the burns to her body, Juguilon said.

Her father, Jayprakash Dhanak, 56, suffered 29 stab wounds to his body, both before and after he died, the pathologist said. He also was hit on the back of his head at least once, causing a skull fracture and a severe brain injury from which a person can die in minutes, Juguilon testified.

Jayprakash was dead when doused with gasoline and his body set on fire in Irvine, the doctor testified.

On May 21, 2007, after learning that his former girlfriend Shayona Dhanak was going on a date with someone else, Murtaza’s “fuse is now lit,” Gundy has told jurors.

Later that day, he and an accomplice beat and tied up her father and when her older sister returned home to a crime in progress, she met the same fate, prosecutors said.

When the mother, Leela Dhanak, came home from work, the men stabbed her in the stomach and slashed her throat, Gundy contended.

They then doused the home with gasoline, set it on fire and attempted to move the three victims to a van outside, he said.

But the plan unraveled, Gundy told jurors. Leela Dhanak, 56, was found by police lying unconscious on her neighbor’s lawn. She survived.

Iftekhar Murtaza, right, sits next to his lawyer Doug Myers during opening staements in his death penalty case. He is accused of kidnapping and murdering his estranged girlfriend's father and sister and setting their bodies on fire in Orange County in 2007. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Judge Thomas M. Goethals presides over the death-penalty case of Iftekhar Murtaza who is accused of kidnapping and murdering his estranged girlfriend's father and sister and setting their bodies on fire in Orange County in 2007. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Deputy D.A. Howard Gundy gives opening statements in the death penalty case of Iftekhar Murtaza. Murtaza is accused of kidnapping and murdering his estranged girlfriend's father and sister and setting their bodies on fire in Orange County in 2007. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Undated DMV photo of Jayprakash Dhanak. Jayprakash and Karishma Dhanak were taken by the assailants to a bike trail at Mason Regional Park in Irvine where they were killed and their bodies set on fire.
This undated image, provided by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, shows Karishma Dhanak. AP PHOTO/CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES
2007 Booking photo of Iftekhar Murtaza.

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